Lenten Blessings

“Lenten Blessings” was preached at Sunnyside Presbyterian Church on Sunday, March 12, 2017. Inspirations for this sermon include Scripture, commentaries, Lenten devotionals, reformed theology, and the theme: leaving the past. A shortened, adapted version of this sermon was preached to the Presbytery of Wabash Valley on Saturday, March 18, 2017 as part of my ordination examination.

—————————————

Genesis 12:1-4a

1 Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. 2 I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse; and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”

4 So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him.

—————————————

John 3:1-17

1 Now there was a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews. 2 He came to Jesus by night and said to him, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God.” 3 Jesus answered him, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can anyone be born after having grown old? Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit. 6 What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not be astonished that I said to you, ‘You must be born from above.’ 8 The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 9 Nicodemus said to him, “How can these things be?” 10 Jesus answered him, “Are you a teacher of Israel, and yet you do not understand these things?

11 “Very truly, I tell you, we speak of what we know and testify to what we have seen; yet you do not receive our testimony. 12 If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things? 13 No one has ascended into heaven except the one who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. 14 And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in him may have eternal life.

16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.

17 “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

—————————————

Consider your Lenten blessings. Yes, you heard that right: Lenten blessings.

For a good majority of us, that might seem like an odd pairing of words: Lenten & Blessings. Some of us might argue and say, “Take out Lent: why not just ask us to consider our blessings all the time.” After all, John Calvin, a founding theologian of our reformed tradition, was superstitious of Lent and believed we should be celebrating a little bit of Easter and the resurrection in every Sunday. For others, maybe the phrase “Lenten blessings” is odd because it’s somewhat of an oxymoron. If Lent if a time for suffering and struggle; for lament and longing – why would I ask you to consider your blessings during a season such as this? But I’m asking you to do it. Consider your Lenten blessings. And whether you are feeling more blessed than Lenten or feeling more Lenten than blessed, let us pair those words together and consider our Lenten blessings.

Whether you see Lent as another time to celebrate the resurrection or whether you see Lent as a time of darkness… If there is one thing we can agree on about the season of Lent, it’s that it comes before the season of Easter. There’s no debating that one. Just as Advent comes before Christmas, Lent definitely comes before Easter. We use these forty days; these seven weeks to follow Jesus’ life to his eventual death on the cross and the promised resurrection to come. Some use this season as a time to give something up—perhaps sweets or social media. Others use this season as a time to take something on—more time reading Scripture, more time in intentional prayer. And then there are some who choose Lent as a moment to leave something behind and as an opportunity to move forward. That’s one of my favorite things about the season of Lent—it’s a time in the church that makes us want to do something as we prepare Easter and the resurrection.

I want to particularly focus on that last action: leaving something behind in order to move forward.

One of my absolute favorite things about being new and fresh in ministry is that everything—and I mean everything—excites me. I love committee meetings and creating plans for the church. I love making visits to church members in their homes or at the hospital and hearing their stories. I love talking with people before and after worship, and I love working alongside people who bring life to the many ministries across the globe. Every opportunity to preach or teach or serve is a privilege I am grateful for, and I absolutely love every minute of it.

And then sometimes as a pastor, I get asked to do odd jobs, which I also love.

For example, several weeks ago I was asked to burn the palm branches so that we could collect their ashes to use in our Ash Wednesday service. This—and I don’t say this lightly—this was a dream come true! When I was asked to burn the branches, my face lit up with excitement. I grabbed the largest bowl I could find to use as a fire pit; a box full of palm branches from last year’s Palm Sunday; and as many matches as I could. Now I’m sure many of you can guess this but one-year old, dry palm branches are extremely flammable. That fire grew and grew; smoke went everywhere… and all I could think to myself was, “Oh my gosh! This is my job! This is awesome. I LOVE THIS!”

But as I continued to watch those branches burn, I couldn’t help but end up in prayerful reflection. I saw the fire grow and the scent of smoke came all around me, clinging to my clothes and filling my nostrils. It brought me back to one of my first blessings in ministry.  

As some of you may know, my first experience in ministry was working for an outdoor ministry summer camp up in northern North Dakota. When I see fire and when I smell smoke, I am instantly brought back to summer and bonfires and camp and music and joy and thanksgiving. Fire and the smoke it brings are two of the sights and smells I associate with ministry. As the branches burned, I remembered my two summers of working at Camp, first as a counselor and then as a chaplain, and how I wanted more than anything to return and work for a third summer. However, due to other commitments (specifically taking a summer Hebrew course at seminary), this wasn’t a feasible option. It was time to move on; it was time to move forward… and that was an incredibly hard decision to accept.

See, camp was my home. Camp was my comfort zone. I could do camp ministry; I was getting pretty good at camp ministry. It was that moment when everything felt okay that God then called me away. I had been blessed by my experience at camp but it was now time to share those blessings in new places with new people. And although it was hard to let go of camp, it brought me to my internship at a church in New Jersey and then to my clinical pastoral education in a hospital in Colorado and then to my residency at Sunnyside. That hard decision was followed by many good things to come. That right there is a Lenten blessing.

Lenten blessings are the good things that happen during trying times. It’s making the difficult decisions. It’s the letting go of what holds us back. It’s the moving on and moving forward. It’s what God reveals to us. Lenten blessings are remembering we are called to be better and do more when things already seem fine. And Lenten blessings are trusting God when things don’t seem fine…

Our passage in Genesis today specifically speaks to Lenten blessings: leaving something behind in order to move forward and do something else. Genesis 12 tells the call of Abram (later better known as Abraham), in which the Lord speaks to Abram and tells him to leave all he has known—his country, his family, his home—to go forth and be blessing unto others. And so Abram does, without question, he leaves his past behind and he goes forward to be a blessing. And it’s not that Abram went without struggle as he went forward to be a blessing. He continued to face hardships and difficult decisions… this includes leaving his home and heading into foreign lands, pretending his wife Sarah was his sister so the Pharaoh would take her in, being promised children in extremely old age, having his first son Ishmael with Hagar and not Sarah, then having his son Isaac with Sarah, having to then cast Hagar and Ishmael out at the request of Sarah,  and then ultimately being tested by God to see if Abram would be willing to sacrifice his son Isaac. Each time he approached hardships with a heart full of  love, trusting that God his Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer would continue to protect and hold Abram’s life as a blessing to be shared with others for generations to come.

What choices do you have to make? What do you have to let go of? How can you move forward? Where is your pain and your suffering and your struggle… and how can use that for something good? Consider your Lenten blessings; consider what is being made good and what you can, with the help of God, make better.

This is not the easiest thing to do. This is especially hard if things are so dark that it seems there is no hope to even see the light, but we are encouraged to try. Look at Nicodemus in John 3. He is still in the dark. The kingdom of God is right in front of him, but he is still unable to see it.

However, we need to give Nicodemus the credit he deserves because he is trying. He literally goes to Jesus in the middle of night trying to learn, seeking to know more so that he can become a better man. It’s important to note that Nicodemus is a Pharisee, a leader of the Jewish people. He is expected to know God’s law… but what makes Nicodemus different than some of the other Pharisees is he approaches Jesus with humility. This act is Nicodemus letting go of what he has always been told and what he as a Pharisee would interpret as God’s law… but he takes this as a chance to find answers.  

To ask open and honest questions to Jesus, I wonder how that made Nicodemus look in front of the other Pharisees. I wonder if they responded with disappointment or ridicule; I wonder if they responded with awe or curiosity. Nicodemus needed to go from what he knew and ask questions so that he would be given answers and see the new things that Jesus would show. So too are we encouraged to leave what we know in order to see the new things that God will reveal. There are few things that are more frightening than this, but there are also a few things that are more faithful.

Keep in mind Abram was in his old age when he was asked to leave his country and kindred. Keep in mind Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a well-established and respected expert of God’s law, when he sought out Jesus. But if Abram, father of the Abrahamic traditions, could leave behind his home, and if Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews, could leave behind his teachings…. Maybe we can do it too. Maybe we are called to leave something behind that is holding us back, so that new and greater things can be revealed.

During this season of Lent, we, like Abram, must go from what we know in hope that God will bless us to be a blessing. We, like Nicodemus, must seek out what Christ will reveal to us and we must do so in humility and openness. This is your opportunity; this is your moment. What is God asking you to leave behind? What is God revealing to you? What journey must you take to expand your identity and be a better version of yourself?

We see this opportunity as a risk, but it is a risk we are called to take. After all, the choices we make to better ourselves for God’s sake will be rewarded with grace and love and salvation. Remember God did not send Christ into the world so that we would perish. God did not send the Son into the world so that it may be condemned. No, God sent Christ into the world so that it may be saved. Christ was sent so that we have been guaranteed eternal life. This is the greatest blessing of all; this is the guaranteed reward to your risk.

My friends, consider your Lenten blessings. In the midst of your darkness, where is the good? In the midst of what’s good, what can be made better? God is calling to us all. Go. Go forth. Go and be blessed. Go and be a blessing. Go and know God shields those who serve.

Consider your Lenten blessings; consider what you must let go; consider what good things are to come.

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.   

—————————————